Mosasaurus hoffmanni


Amongst the top pieces in the museum's collections are remains of the various large animals from the Cretaceous, for instance the large mosasaur fossils. Remains of Mosasaurus hoffmanni are amongst the most famous fossils worldwide. A reconstruction of a complete skeleton at the museum shows the size of this monster.

One of the most spectacular finds is tthe famous mosasaur skull found in the chalk deposits of Mount St. Pieter in 1770. Although quarry workers had already unearthed numerous fossils, the discovery of the enormous skull was special.

The only thing that was certain was that this was an animal thus far unknown. In the first scientific papers it was suggested that it was a kind of toothed whale or crocodile. The find was studied by numerous scholars, but it would be almost 60 years before it was given a scientific name. Until that day the specimen was usually referred to as 'Le grand animal inconnu des Carrières de Maestricht': the large unknown animal from the Maastricht quarries.

In 1829 it was first named Mosasaurus hoffmanni. The fossil played an important part in questions relating to the origin of life, the age of the earth and the instability of species: new theories were put forward, including the evolution theory. The Maastricht mosasaur thus belongs to the most important fossils in the world: the find was essential to Georges Cuvier's studies, the French scholar who for the first time demonstrated that the world had once been inhabited by now extinct animals. Thanks to Cuvier's studies, scholars soon came to realise the importance of the first discoveries of dinosaur bones - twenty years later.

After the original specimen had been brought to Paris in 1794 by order of the then authorities, Maastricht received a cast which had been prepared under Cuvier's supervision.

Mosasaurus hoffmanni is currently assigned to the subfamily Mosasaurinae of the family Mosasauridae in the superfamily Mosasauroidea. This superfamily constitutes together with the Varanoidea (to which the monitor lizard or Komodo dragon belong) the infraorder Platynota of the suborder Anguimorpha in the order of the Sauria (= Lacertilia) within the superorder of Squamata in the class of the Reptilia.

home | back | back to the tour